As much as the newly announced Xbox 360 price cut for Europe is a very welcome move from Microsoft, one has to got to wonder what are the real reasons behind it.

Is it, as some would like to believe, a precursor to the rumored 60GB SKU? It's a good thing, though, that Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Europe Vice President Chris Lewis gave a few statements explaining why such price drops have become possible.

"We had to reach and surpass key milestones before we dropped 360’s UK price," Lewis said. If you're wondering what specific milestones Microsoft is talking about, Chris Lewis provided as well the following outline:

• We’ve taken 42% revenue share of next gen-games market - including hardware, peripherals and software, as well as the stunning performance of Live.
• We’re consistently attaching games at high level - we’re now at north of seven games to every console. That’s considerably more than our competitors and something we’re immensely proud of.
• On top of that, we’ve worked our way to a 17.7 million units worldwide installed base - and Europe is a critical geography within that figure.

Lewis also commented that the "ability to continually drive cost through the console" is also a big factor to the price cut. The new prices will take effect in Europe this coming March 14.